


Laughter Like Sugar and Shots

by Satan (CherryBones)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - GTA, Fake AH Crew, M/M, just how they meet and shit, literally based around the one line at the end of the first paragraph, there's mention of banging and shit so mature it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 12:48:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5049208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherryBones/pseuds/Satan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Geoff meets a fumbling sweet man in a seedy bar. He meets the Vagabond not long after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laughter Like Sugar and Shots

Geoff meets him in a rowdy bar in the dead center of town. They’re both dressed down, jeans and ratty t-shirts. The nameless man at the bar wears glasses too, a pair too small for his face and adding to the utter adorableness of his form. It’s hard to tell with the general bagginess of his clothes but he looks fit. Drunk on gold and alcohol and power, a successful heist just on his heels, he approaches, settling down next to him. The guy glances over him, flashing a shy grin that doesn’t fit with their surroundings and immediately sucks Geoff in. It’s a little work to get him to open up but he eventually does, chatting with a fluid ease, endearing despite the way he fumbles over his words and loses his train of thought. He says he's visiting for business, doesn't know how long. Geoff stares at his cheeks, at the blush that’s slowly worked there despite the fact that he hasn’t had a drink despite Geoff offering him one, barely listening to the actual words and instead to the inflection, the warmth. He cracks a joke and the guy’s face lights up as he laughs. His laughter is like cotton candy and grain alcohol, sweet and rich and addicting and like that, Geoff is instantly in love.

The crime lord fucks him senseless in the dark corner of the alley behind the bar, scraping his back on the rough brick and earning bite marks up and down his neck. The guy comes when he pins him to the wall by his neck. Afterwards, the guy presses a slip with a number into his hand and a teasingly chaste kiss to his cheek, telling Geoff to call him before he seemingly vanishes into the dark. He looks, but cannot find him. The paper, just that string of digits and no name, goes into his wallet, forgotten for now.

The next day the Vagabond hits Los Santos. He makes his presence known with fire and destruction, the world falling to its knees around him, begging for nothing more than another day of breath. Geoff scrambles to protect his assets against this seemingly unstoppable threat, against this masked figure caked in blood and death. The Vagabond is a rogue, going for the highest bidder and nothing else. Even then, the highest bidder doesn't always survive. You did not try to double-cross the man in the skull mask and hope to get out alive. Geoff has no doubts that now that the Vagabond is in town, the other crews trying to knock him and his crew from their place of power will be trying to hire him, his only hope is to get to him first.

He gets lucky, or maybe the Vagabond allowed it, because soon enough he gets a call from one of his contacts, telling him that there’s a lead. The lead soon ends in nowhere but almost immediately after he gets a call from one of the store owners under his employ, their voice shaking as they tell him that the Vagabond is currently in their shop, his gun pointed at their head as they relay a message for him. The message is simple. He’s already received offers but he’s for hire still, for the right price. Then there’s an address and the line goes dead with a click. He sends one of his crew to check on them and soon finds that they’re fine. Shaken, but fine. Geoff takes a case of cash to the designated address. The Vagabond is there, lurking in the shadows, the light catching on the contours of his mask and the thick blade in his hand the only signs of him. He says nothing as Geoff steels himself and describes what the money is for, both protection from those trying to hire the Vagabond, and for a single heist, because Ramsey never gives out money without expecting something in return. Or at least, that’s what his reputation says. Geoff throws the briefcase onto the table nearby, popping it open to show him the cash before retreating. The knife embeds itself in the wood of the surface as he checks the cash. Then there’s a chuckle, low and dark and making Geoff feel like he’s drowning in ill intent. For some reason his brain travels back to that man in the bar, with the laugh of sugar and shots, but he shakes it off. This is no time to be distracted.

“Desperate to keep off my bad side Ramsey?”

The voice is deep and gruff, a growl more than anything, rumbling through the air and vibrating the fear in Geoff’s soul. Instead of showing it he just growls right back.

“Do we have a deal?”

The Vagabond turns to him, pulling the weapon from the table in the same smooth motion. The light catches the ice blue eyes behind the mask and Geoff knows true fear. He can’t say for sure, but it feels like the Vagabond is grinning at him, like there’s some joke that he’s not privy to. Geoff just hopes that the punchline isn’t his own life.

The heist, like many do, goes both well and horribly. They all escape, the money safely in Geoff’s hands, but they are scattered, roaches with the light shone on them. Geoff winds up huddled in a foreclosed apartment with the Vagabond, pacing as he waits for the sirens to fade. The Vagabond leans against the wall, checking the clip of his gun once, twice, then looking around the cramped room. His eyes settle on Geoff, on the cash, back to his face, to the shuttered window, and back yet again. Geoff holds the money a little closer as he stares back at those calculating blue orbs. He knows he's thinking about the bag before him, of all the contracts and bounties he could fulfill, of the case at wherever he was staying, all of the money he could make if he put a bullet in Geoff here and now. The crime boss of Los Santos holds his breath and prepares to die in a shitty little apartment where no one will find him until he’s rotted away. But instead, the Vagabond snaps the clip back into his gun and returns it to its holster with a quiet ‘nah’.

That’s the day that Geoff learns that above all else, the Vagabond is loyal to whoever holds the leash, as long as they don’t try to tug on it too hard. Or, at the very least, that he has an ulterior motive beyond money. After that, one heist turns into two, turns into five then six then more. They become accustomed to him just showing up, appearing at the door or from the shadows, always more than enough help and saving all their asses more often than not. He rarely speaks more than a handful of words at a time, never even thinks to remove the mask, but they all learn to respect it, to listen to his input when it is given, to enjoy the occasional dark joke. The Vagabond grumbles out a name somewhere along the line, Ryan, whether or not it’s fake they assume they’ll never know. The first time they put a rocket launcher in his hands he laughs, maniacal and deathly and Geoff wonders if it’s possible to be in love with two strangers at once, the purest of opposites but with the most beautiful laughs Geoff has ever heard. He forgets about that number in his wallet, forgets about all but that honeyed laugh, tries to disregard his strangely warm memories of the stranger in the bar months ago.

He forgets about it until one day he cleans out his wallet and there it is. Two fingers of whiskey in and feeling a little daring, he dials in the number and hopes that the man who gave him the number will pick up.

Someone does, but it’s not exactly who he expects.

“Yeah?”

The voice is a gruff growl, one he’s heard muffled through a mask a good few times. He blinks, glances back down to the number like it’ll randomly be something that Ryan has given him. But Ryan never gave him a number. Only the mystery man at the bar.

“I, uh...Ryan? You…?”

There’s a pause, then a laugh. _The laugh_ but also not, somehow better. The sweetness feels soaked in blood, tinged with madness but also gleeful joy. The next time he speaks, it’s of the bright fumbling voice of the man in the bar.

“I was wondering when you’d call.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yup


End file.
